[HPforGrownups] Hardy on "dumbledores" and "hag-rid" (was Re: Name meanin...

[eloiseherisson at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 44257

In a message dated 20/09/2002 17:01:04 GMT Standard Time, 
absinthe at mad.scientist.com writes:


> Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Chapter 20...
> 
> 'The sharp reprimand was not lost upon her, and in time it came to 
> pass that for "fay" she said "succeed"; that she no longer spoke 
> of "dumbledores" but of "humble bees"; no longer said of young men 
> and women that they "walked together," but that they were "engaged"; 
> that she grew to talk of "greggles" as "wild hyacinths"; that when 
> she had not slept she did not quaintly tell the servants next morning 
> that she had been "hag-rid," but that she had "suffered from 
> indigestion." '
> 
> 

Thanks. I wasn't doubting it was there in Hardy, just noting that I couldn't 
find it in the Wessex Dialect Glossary!

But now I think about it, even in that passage, I think that the meaning may 
be 'hagridden', rather than 'indigestion' per se, in that 'hagridden'  
denotes having nightmares, something that is also associated in some people's 
minds with digestive upset: eg the result of eating cheese late in the 
evening. In fact it's in _A Christmas Carol_  isn't it, when Scrooge tells 
Marley's ghost,

"You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, 
a fragment of an underdone potato. "

*If* I'm right, she was still showing her sophistication by acknowledging 
that her nightmares were the result ot digestive upset (a scientific 
explanation), rather than a country girl's quaint and superstitious idea that 
nightmares were caused by some evil spirit (the 'mare' bit of nightmare comes 
from the Old English for incubus, an idea reflected in Pullman's use of the 
word, 'nightghast'.)
'Walked together' isn't dialect either.

I'm no expert on Wessex dialect. But I'm not *convinced* that 'hagrid' is a 
dialect word, though it may well mean just as you say.

Eloise
Trying desperately not to sound argumentative, but just intrigued.




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